Green libraries promoting sustainable communities

Abstract

What is a sustainable community? How does the library as an institution, through the construction or renovation of a library building, promote and model sustainable behavior? The behavior and process that a library institution exhibits during the construction of a library building establishes an important community bond between the institution and the citizens it serves. Citizens not only learn from the process but they also begin to understand how to model their behavior. Libraries, in turn, learn from their citizens who are increasingly demanding a deeper commitment to sustainable practices in the construction, operation and maintenance of their libraries. Besides these community-centric relationships, the buildings themselves can model best practices. Specifically, the community dialogue and listening process is crucial to establishing trust between the institution and the citizens. Without this trust, the success of a sustainable community will falter. This paper uses examples of these best practices and discusses the lessons learned for promoting sustainable communities through library design, building and operations.